


You've been undone

by antimone_ii



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, M/M, Non-MCU-canonical though, Spoilers for Avengers: IW, Wade's a good dad Fite Me, Wade-Centric, Whaddup who's ready to cry about Wade Wilson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 18:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14575509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antimone_ii/pseuds/antimone_ii
Summary: Wade’s in Macau when it happens. He’s three days into a routine stakeout and passing the time by daydreaming about taking Peter and Ellie to an island - when screams begin erupting in the city below.Wisps of gray and brown rise from the crowded streets, disintegrating upwards into the rest of the smog. Wade squints, points his scope toward the panicked crowds in the streets and rubs his eyes.“Oh damn, we really lost it this time, didn’t we?”





	You've been undone

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Infinity War if you care about the MCU-verse!
> 
> .  
> .  
> .
> 
> Major character death _implied_.

Wade’s in Macau when it happens. He’s lying on his stomach on a rooftop, three days into a routine stakeout and passing the time by daydreaming about the beach. He’s been entertaining the idea of taking Peter and Ellie to an island - maybe they’ll teleport to one of those private sandbars owned by stock jockeys who never really appreciate the beach - where Pete can teach Ellie about oceanic biology or whatever the fuck, and Wade can listen to his Bachelorette podcasts and soak up the sun.

It’s a pleasant daydream, and he’s just getting to the sexy part of the fantasy (after Ellie’s been tucked into her beach hammock bed and Pete starts showing off some sand yoga), when screams begin erupting in the city below. Wisps of gray and brown rise from the crowded streets, disintegrating upwards into the rest of the smog. Wade squints, points his scope toward the panicked crowds in the streets and rubs his eyes.

“Oh damn, we really lost it this time, didn’t we?” He smacks the side of his head, trying to jostle whatever fresh hallucination this is out of his mind.

Pointing the scope back up to his mark’s window, he watches the poor asshole stare down at his hands, a silent scream on his face as he crumbles into dust and is reduced to Hoover bait on his plush bathmat.

“Welp,” Wade says, folding his scope up and packing his gear away. “Guess _I’m_ not gettin’ paid, huh?” And as he reaches for his duffle bag, he notices his hand getting… fuzzy around the edges. It looks like static, focusing in and out, like his arms and legs are rapidly falling apart before his eyes, only to reassemble just as quickly. Come to think of it, now that he’s paying attention, his healing factor is going into overdrive - it _burns_.

Wade dials into the sensation and realizes it’s like that time he got de-atomized, only slowed way down. It’s an awful feeling, he thinks, like his very soul’s being tugged, splintered apart but everything is moving so sluggishly, like he’s walking underwater and completely helpless against any of it. And, fuck, the _burning_ , it’s a horrible, piercing agony that’s consuming every particle of his being, and his healing factor isn’t catching up quite fast enough to deter whatever this is from eating away at his body.

 _Well shit_ , he thinks, this time might actually be the one. And just when he thought he’d gotten something to live for, too.

Still, it’s a relief when he blacks out and the pain falls away.

But, as it turns out, even half the universe blinking out of existence isn’t enough for Wade Winston Wilson.

Stepping out of her inky black kingdom, Lady Death folds her hands and looks Wade over, shakes her head with a morose little smile, and sends him back on up.

He comes to on the same rooftop, reassembled, scope in hand, with no sense of the time that’s passed since he… got dusted. Something’s off though, and Wade thinks that it’s far too quiet. There’s still the usual Macau city bustle, a little more screaming and sobbing than is average, but it feels _lessened_. He rappels down the side of the building and shoves his way over to a cafe where a TV is blaring the news.

His Cantonese is a bit rusty but he gets the idea pretty quickly - Avengers, space invaders, cataclysmic event, blah blah blah - and then after that registers, Wade’s brain shuts off and devolves into a screaming fit because _where are the people he loves_.

He calls Preston first. She picks up immediately, to his relief.

“Put Ellie on,” he demands as soon as she answers.

“Wade--”

“Emily, put my daughter on, _now_. Please.”

“She’s here. Hold on.” The tight tension in his chest loosens just a bit as Preston shuffles on the other end.

The anxiety mounts in his throat again until he hears her voice: “Dad?”

“ _Ellie_ ,” Wade exhales, and he thinks he could cry, or laugh, or blow his brains out, or whatever the appropriate reaction is to knowing that his daughter is alive and hasn’t been reduced to ash. “Thank Jesus on a tandem bike, baby, I’m so happy to hear your voice.”

“Dad, where’d everyone go?” He hates how scared and small she sounds.

“I don’t know yet, kiddo, but I’m comin’ back to New York, alright? Looks like those idiots upstate could use some help at the mo’. Just… stay with Emily and don’t go nowhere, okay?”

“Okay.” She pauses, breathes. “Dad, what about Peter? Is he with you?”

Wade squeezes his eyes shut. One crisis at a time. “He’s not with me, no kiddo, I called you as soon as I could. I’m gonna go check on him now though, we’ll call you right away, Ellie-belly.”

She sniffles. “ _Promise_ ,” she orders.

“I promise. I gotta go, Ellie, we’ll call you the minute we can, I swear.”

He hangs up, tries the teleporter, splinches himself halfway across the street in a mess of gore.

“Fuck!” He tries again, and this time, enough of him makes it halfway across the world and into Central Park that he can hobble around while his right arm, half his ribcage and a few organs by the feel of it, grow back anew.

As soon as his shitty stateside phone gets service again, he drags himself toward Midtown and immediately calls Peter. He doesn’t pick up.

Wade takes a deep breath, doesn’t let that scare him. Peter has a bad habit of leaving his phone on silent anyways - and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time the twerp’s accidentally let him go to voicemail.

He tries again. On the third try, he leaves a voicemail. “Pete. Pick the fuck up.”

It speaks to the self-absorbed tenacity of New York City that even with half the world vanished, the people rushing by Wade don’t spare him a second glance, guts hanging out and everything. The crowd around him is eerily thinned out even though it’s peak rush hour - people are wailing or wandering around in various states of distress or relief. For once, Wade can relate to his surroundings.

He tries one, two more times. Leaves another voicemail. “Ellie’s alive. I am too. Uh, obviously. Where are you? I’m in Midtown. Headed to your apartment. _Pick up_.”

By the time he reaches Peter’s dingy apartment, he’s mostly regenerated so he doesn’t feel too bad about busting the door down. It wouldn’t be the worst state he’s terrified Peter’s roommates in, and besides, a broken door serves him fucking right for not picking up.

“‘Lo? Hey yo, Petey!” No one answers.

Wade limps over to Peter’s door, kicks it in and scans the room. His backpack’s not here - they’d all be in class right about now, Wade tells himself. “Kids these days,” he shouts loudly, shuffling over to the empty kitchen, “too cowardly to play hooky anymore, am I right?”

The ancient refrigerator hums mournfully back at him and the rising panic squeezes tight in Wade’s chest. “Calm down, we gotta find Petey before we fuckin’ lose it for good,” he hisses to himself.

He squints at the dry-erase calendar one of Peter’s roommates has slapped to the fridge, picks out today’s date. ‘Din w/May’, it reads in Peter’s cramped chickenscratch. May, she’ll know.

Wade mashes the teleportation device. Something fizzles - he looks down and he’s missing three fingers off his left hand. “Ugh.” Mashes it again. Nothing happens this time. “ _Fuck_!” Wade rips his mask off, huffing shallow breaths through his mouth. He’s wasting time, _Peter could be -_ \- “Shut the fuck up, don’t go there,” he snarls at himself, tamping down the cold squeezing up his throat now. “I’m gonna wring your dumb little neck, Peter Benjamin Parker,” he says, ripping at the material of his mask frantically. _If he’s even_ got _a neck anymore_ , and, _nope_ , “Don’t _go_ there,” Wade shouts.

He grabs onto the fridge and slams his skull into the hard surface, blinking dazedly as his thoughts scatter feebly.

Better.

He crawls out Peter’s fire escape and opts to make his way to Queens via the rooftops. It’s quieter up here, less panic bleeding into his mind from the crowds below. He pulls up May’s number and dials. It rings once, twice - then she picks up, bless her gentle soul.

“MAY, you old vixen, God love a duck.”

“Wade? Is that you? What’s happening, what’s going on? Is this Avengers stuff? I saw my patient _disintegrate_ right in front of me, Wade, what the fu--”

“I’m on my way, Miss May, hang tight. Pleasepleaseplease tell me Peter’s with you.”

Silence falls. Wade nearly loses his footing and barely catches himself over the edge of a 12-story brownstone.

“ _May_? Where’s Pete?”

“He's not… He's not with you?”

Wade swears loudly, runs faster. “No. I was -- I was on another work thing. Hang tight, okay? I'm nearly there, Miss May, we're gonna find Pete.”

He hangs up and texts Preston as he goes, ' _any1 know where spidey is???? urgent_ ’

She replies almost immediately and Wade is so fixed on her text that he eats shit trying to jump the gap between two buildings. He squints at the cracked screen: ‘ _Last seen w/Stark on unknown spacecraft over Manhattan. Radio silence since, last ping was from Stark’s suit at 14:48 GMT._

Wade is going to murder Tony Stark in the slowest of ways, he resolves. _‘MY SPIDEY IS IN SPACE????!;??’_ is his furious response.

‘ _Sorry W. HQ is contacting off-planet stations, will notify as soon as we have location/intel._

He _knows_ Stark can be cavalier with Peter’s life at the best of times, but this? Taking him onboard an alien spacecraft with no information whatsoever - it’s harebrained, even for Stark. And that’s a judgment call coming from _Wade fucking Wilson._ But Wade would never dream of putting Peter’s life in danger like that. Wade’s seen his fair share of off-planet baddies, and there’s some horrible shit out there that no one - _much less Peter_ \- should ever be exposed to.

“Why couldn’t you stick to carjackings and bodega bandits, Pete, you motherloving martyr?” Wade hisses reproachfully, leaping the last stretch to May’s Queens building.

He lands on May’s front porch with a heavy _thunk_ (and maybe a spiral fracture too, going by the _snap_ noise), and she screams from inside before hurrying out to collect him.

“Jesus, Wade, you scared the hell out of me,” she shouts, her voice wobbly. She grabs Wade under his armpits and hauls him inside the townhouse with little trouble though, and even in the midst of crisis, he has to admire the little lady’s moxie.

Wade lets himself be manhandled into one of the kitchen chairs while May fusses over him, pouring all of her nerves into looking after someone else. He takes the mask off - a testament to how much he’s come to trust the Parkers - and looks around the cramped kitchen as if Peter’s going to pop up from behind the toaster and tell Wade he’s just been punk’d.

“Any word from Peter?” May asks, dropping into the chair opposite Wade and pushing a mug of cold coffee toward him. She’s twisting her fingers anxiously in her lap and Wade wishes more than anything that he had better news.

“Nothin’ yet. Miss May,” he reaches across the table and grabs her hands if only to stop them twitching, “Pete’s, uh, he’s in space.”

May freezes. She yanks her hands back and stands up, her chair clattering to the ground behind her. Wade’s own head is spinning and he could _really_ use a solid whack to the cranium at the moment, but he thinks only one of them is allowed a mental breakdown at a time. “He _what_?”

“My SHIELD contacts said he was on a spaceship with Stark. That’s all they know right now,” he says apologetically. The anxiety builds tight in his gut, churning with all the possible horrible outcomes, and he feels like he’s either going to yartz or cry. Wade waits until May’s back is turned to thump the heel of his hand into his temple, _hard_ , until the nasty, conspiring voices with their horrible theories fade out into a dull ringing.

May is laughing now, but in that horrible unhinged way. “ _That_ spaceship?” She points toward the sky where, presumably, an alien spaceship had been floating previously. “That fucking spaceship that a bunch of _alien killer monster things_ came out of? My boy’s up there?”

Her voice breaks on the last note and Wade gets up out of instinct, gathers May into his arms.

“I’m gonna beat the _everloving shit_ outta Tony Stark,” she growls into Wade’s shoulder, her tone downright murderous.

“Get in line, Miss May.”

Wade’s arms twitch even as he pats May’s head sympathetically. He’s itching for action - he can’t handle just standing around with no plan and just _waiting_ for Stark to stop dicking around in space. _What would Peter do?_ Wade had considered getting a cheesy little camp bracelet with ‘WWPD’ braided into it - if he’s being honest, he first proposed it as a joke to make fun of Pete and to get to see him flush, but the dumb sentiment grew on him as he began molding a moral compass of his own. Peter’s not perfect, not by any means, but he’s always done right by Wade. And Wade thinks pretty confidently that Peter would stick with May too, make sure she was okay, so that’s what Wade determines he’s going to do.

They stand in a close embrace like that for a few moments until May collects herself. She gives a ragged exhale, looks grimly up at Wade - and god bless this sweet lady - she goes straight for the liquor tucked at the back of her spice cabinet and fills a whole glass with bourbon.

May leans against the counter, takes a sip and scrunches her face up in disgust. “Eurgh. Never was my thing,” she says, indicating the glass of bourbon in her hand. “I think this bottle’s from, God, what is it, thirty years ago now? Peter’s dad gifted it to me and Ben for our wedding. I think we opened it once.” She takes another long drink, winces just a little this time. “ _Oh_ , no, I remember. Had myself a stiff drink the night I found out what Peter gets up to at night,” she says, rolling her eyes, and Wade can’t help but laugh, loud and surprised at that.

“He tends to have that effect on people, huh?” Wade makes grabby hands for the rest of the bottle and May obliges. He may not be able to get properly drunk, but he’ll take any amount of buzz to quiet the voices rattling around his head. “He didn’t tell you ‘bout Spider-Man first?”

May shakes her head. “No, he _correctly_ assumed that if he did tell me, I’d’ve grounded him for as long as I had the legal right to and had an aneurysm. Mind you, I _still_ damn near had an aneurysm when I found out,” she mutters, taking a swig of her bourbon. “You’re a superhero, Wade,” he doesn’t bother correcting her, “you’re used to running around with morons in spandex risking life and limb. Doesn’t it bother you, what Peter gets up to?”

Wade shrugs. “Sometimes, yeah. Mind you, I’ve met some real muscular assholes May, and Petey-pie’s still probably one of the three strongest guys I know,” he hastily cuts himself off before he can get into how hot and riled Peter’s superstrength gets him going. “I know he can hold his own. It’s just…” he waves his hand vaguely at the sky, spaceship-direction, “Petey tends to think he’s bulletproof or somethin’.” The ‘ _he’s not_ ’ part of that sentence goes unsaid by both of them.

With a long sigh, May leans her head back against the kitchen cabinets. “I think Peter’s always been like that though.”

“Whaddaya mean? Like he was beatin’ up bullies in the schoolyard? Taking punches for the underdog?”

May grimaces. “Something like that. Getting in the way of people he’s better off avoiding, throwing himself into traffic to save little old ladies.” She ducks her head down, combs through her hair and finds strands of silver, holds them out for Wade to examine. “My mom didn’t go gray until she was in her 70s. This is all Peter’s fault,” she complains.

“Yeah, well, he made me go bald,” Wade retorts, and she laughs. “Two weeks ago, we were on a date, right? Sue me, I’m just tryin’ to enjoy a nice day out with my guy, we’re in civvies and everything and walkin’ over this bridge - Pete hears someone getting mugged _under the bridge_ and jumps the whole way down. ‘Bout shit myself when I see Spider-Man swinging in to save the day.”

Wade and May snort at the same time. “Sounds about right,” she says drily.

He points an accusatory finger at May. “You raise him with this dumb hero complex?”

May gives an offended gasp and puts a hand over her chest. “How _dare_ you, Wilson.” She takes another drink. “I’ll have you know, pig-headed martyrdom runs in the _Parker_ side of the family, and we all know how--” she cuts herself off, her expression crumples and she inhales suddenly, ragged and lost, like a fish dragged out of the sea. She turns away from Wade. He doesn’t miss the way her shoulders tremble though, thinks they’re talking about Peter like they’re already at his wake.

Nausea rolls through Wade’s stomach. He thinks back to when his own body had started to turn to dust, remembers how it’d burned from the inner layers of his very skin as his healing factor worked desperately to knit him back together, how finally blacking out had been a relief.

Would Peter’s healing factor elongate his own death, draw it out? Or would it be quick and painless, like Wade’s mark in Macau, only giving him a brief moment of realization before he fell away? “Stop,” he says loudly, to himself mostly, but May flinches, wipes her face on the back of her hand like he can’t see she was just crying for her kid.

He gets up, takes the glass from May’s hand and pours it down the sink. “That’s enough of that, Miss May,” he says gently, leading her by the shoulder back to the table. He sits her down and pours her a glass of water, pushes it into her hand.

She’s quiet for a long time then, staring intently at her own hands, and Wade doesn’t quite know what to say. He feels grief rising dangerously close to the surface and he grasps desperately for any other feeling than grief. There’s anger - enough of it alright, throbbing dully under his skin - anger at Stark mostly, anger at the Avengers too for getting Pete wound up in their intergalactic bullshit.

But sitting here in May’s tiny kitchen, watching her blink wet tears away, anger feels too distant. He can’t punch, slice, shoot or maim - he’s too tired to want to do any of those things. And his exhaustion gives way to helplessness, which bleeds far too close to grief for his liking.

He picks up his phone, texts Preston again: ‘ _any word??’_ and texts Peter again for good measure: ‘ _im @may’s. Get ur lil butt here soon bb, love u_ ’

A moment later, he regrets doing that because his phone’s text alert goes off and every fucking nerve in his body goes alight with hope in one moment, and dies like ash in his mouth the next when he sees it’s just Preston texting him back.

‘ _Nothing yet. Sit tight.’_

He fires off a quick ‘ _k_ ’ and sets his phone down, looks up and locks eyes with May. She’s crying freely now, the same hopeful breath shot dead in her eyes.

“Shit, ‘m sorry May. That was just my SHIELD contact. No news.”

May chews her bottom lip anxiously, drums her fingers on the tabletop and looks like she’s about to fall apart. For the second time that day, Wade relates. He takes May’s hand across the table and squeezes, doesn’t say anything when she sobs brokenly.

They sit, and they wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Look I just really love May and Wade and they deserve some screentime together ok :)))


End file.
